How to Enjoy Your Bible by John Blanchard

I first found out about this book on Nathan Bingham’s microblog where he posted an Interview with Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III. In talking about as a pastor, trying to convince Christians under their guidance about the importance of studying God’s Word, Ligon Duncan said, ‘[G]et your people to read good books about Bible study and prayer (John Blanchard, “How to Enjoy Your Bible,” Don Carson, “A Call to Spiritual Reformation,” Matthew Henry, “Method For Prayer,” “Ryken’s Bible Handbook,” etc).’

I respect Ligon Duncan so I looked into it, especially because I was about to embark on reading the Old Testament again. I already enjoy my Bible, but I want to enjoy it even more!

So I wrote to Evangelical Press and asked them if they send out review copies. They wrote right back and said they’d be happy to.

The book is written at a ‘popular level’ meaning it will be understandable to anyone who has any familiarity with the Bible. It’s at a little more basic level than I expected but that’s only because of the other recommendations that surrounded it. At 180 pages it’s fairly easy to get through.

Chapter 2 – Countering the critics, answers many of the arguments people have against the Bible. Maybe even some of the people reading the book have these questions. The questions that are addressed are: Those who deny its authority, Those who deride its simplicity, Those who denounce its history, Those who dispute its accuracy, Those who doubt its integrity and Those who decry its credibility.

There are two chapters on The excellence of the evidence. The author comes from the view of inerrancy. Quoting Brian Edwards, Nothing but the Truth, Evangelical Press, pg. 139, on the Bible’s human authors:

They recorded accurately all that God wanted them to say and exactly how he wanted them to say it, in their own character, style and language. The inspiration of Scripture is a harmony of the active mind of the writer and the sovereign direction of the Holy Spirit to produce God’s inerrant and infallible word for the human race.

He writes about prophecy, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, history and how the Bible comes from God.

There is the obligatory chapter on translations which is basic and brief. This is a decent chapter for those who aren’t familiar with different translations and styles. As in most books, the more literal/formal translations get the nod. After writing about translation theory and why translations are different, various translations are reviewed including KJV/AV, RSV, NASB, GNB, NIV, NKJB, CEV and ESV. Since the book was published in 2007 I would have expected a different selection including the NLT for sure and possibly the HCSB and NRSV.

After writing about the canon and various means of reading and studying the Bible we come to the chapter that is more than worth the cost of the whole book called The outcome of obedience. The vital link that brings reading and studying the Bible, and joy (enjoyment [I made that up]). This chapter has many quotable quotes by the author and others well known. I will pick one by J.C. Ryle:

God tests men’s sincerity by making obedience part of the process by which religious* knowledge is obtained. Are we really willing to do God’s will so far as we know it? If we are, God will take care that our knowledge is increased.

*religion wasn’t a dirty word back then

He writes about loving obedience, willing obedience, believing obedience, wholehearted obedience and dependent obedience. The last one is “so important that it governs all others.” We are dependent on God’s enabling. This is what takes the fear out of obedience for those who don’t like that word and he explains this concept well in the book. This is key and he saved the best for last.

I would highly recommend this book for those who are rather new to these concepts and need more confidence in the reliability of the Bible, need to learn the various ways to read and study the Bible and learn how key obedience is in this whole process. These things all put together will help us to better enjoy our Bibles.

• Paperback: 185 pages
• Publisher: EP Books (October 2007)
• ISBN-10: 0852346700

Buy it at:
Amazon.com

The Prayer of the Lord by R.C. Sproul

This is a Reformation Trust review. They send you a PDF file of the book, you review it on your blog and they then send you the book.

I use The Lord’s Prayer every Friday as a template for my praying. So I wanted to take the opportunity to review a book on it.

Like The Truth of the Cross, this is a relatively short book on a subject that has a wide interest. The reading level of this book would be ‘popular’ or a little deeper than introductory. At 130 pages it’s not imposing at all. Whenever there is a term that might need explaining, he does so concisely and in a well understood manner. As long as the read is familiar with the Bible and has read the Lord’s prayer, this book will be very accessible.

Sproul uses anecdotes sparingly but wisely, always dealing directly with what he’s teaching as opposed to trying to entertain or tell funny stories to try to keep the reader’s interest.

The first chapter is How Not To Pray. Of course in learning how not to pray one also learns in very general terms how to pray. This is a helpful first chapter that introduces the account of the disciples asking Jesus how to pray.

The main body of the book of course deals with each section of the prayer. These are expository (explaining what it means) as opposed to looking at it from the audience’s culture, point of view, politics, Jesus’ Jewishness etc. That would be for another book.

In the chapter on Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread, he writes of providence and provision as if they are synonymous. This was rather confusing to me because I thought that providence is God ordering of things and provision is God providing for us. I realize there is some overlap and in God’s providence he provides for us but more of a distinction may have been helpful so that readers wouldn’t confuse the terms.

Unlike many other writings and sermons on this prayer, Sproul spends a whole chapter on Yours Is the Kingdom which is the last part of the prayer that some Greek manuscripts include and some don’t.

Chapter 10 is Questions and Answers which deals “other issues surrounding the practice of prayer and the Lord’s Prayer specifically.” This chapter is a helpful bonus.

And yet another bonus is If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray? Anyone who wrestles with this idea will be enlightened and encouraged by reading it.

I felt this endorsement was the closest to how I feel abut the book:

I love listening to R. C. Sproul teach, and this book sounds just
like him—penetrating truths strikingly illustrated. His good
quotations and pastoral wisdom make him as easy to read as he
is delightful to listen to (and the short chapters help!). Sproul
clearly explains the Scriptures with sentences that are simple and
accurate. He knows enough to say important things concisely
and clearly—truths about the kingdom, the fatherhood of God,
history, and, of course, prayer. There’s even a helpful question-and-answer section at the end. This little book now takes its
place with the classics on prayer.

–Dr. Mark Dever
Senior pastor
Capitol Hill Baptist Church

For those who have read books on prayer that cover the Lord’s prayer well, books on the Sermon on the Mount or commentaries on Matthew, this book may be somewhat of a review as far as the chapters that deal directly with the prayer. If you recited this during church but never deeply pondered what it really means or are unfamiliar with this portion of Scripture, this is an excellent book for you.

Read a sample chapter.

See excerpts on Facebook.

Hardcover: 130 pages
Publisher: Reformation Trust Publishing (May 31, 2009)

Buy it at:

• Ligonier Ministries
• Amazon

Learn to Read New Testament Greek, Third Edition by David Alan Black

This book and the companion workbook are review copies sent to me by the publisher, B&H Publishing Group of LifeWay Christian Resources, via NetGalley. I appreciate the opportunity to review these materials.

This review is written by someone learning Greek on their own. I hope this is helpful for someone in the same situation or for someone who is brushing up on Greek learned in the past.

I have looked extensively at a couple of the other popular beginning Greek grammars although I won’t be doing any direct comparisons.

Regarding the aesthetics, the hardcover is very sturdy in addition to being very appealing to look at. The black cover is a nice tie-in to the author’s last name. The paper is high quality, crisp and white which takes to a highlighter very well. The conjugations are in gray shaded boxes which helps them stand out and makes them easy to locate when wanting to go back and review them. The only thing I don’t like is that the font chosen for the Greek is a little less formal than what most of us are used to seeing which takes a little while to get used to.

In a word this book is efficient. There are no chapter overviews, introductions, summaries,  what you’ll learn in the next chapter, etc. which is usually annoying anyway. The author gets right down to business in each chapter. Each of the 26 chapters are short enough that you don’t need those things.

This doesn’t mean the book’s information is skimpy. You will learn a lot of the important terms so that when you read a more technical Bible commentary or read what others write about Greek, you will have learned or at least have a reference for the terms at the beginning level which are explained well.

The exercises for the first 17 chapters of the book are made-up sentences in Greek that the student translates. All of the words in the sentences are from vocabulary that has been learned previously in the book.

Starting in chapter 18, Bible verses are used for the exercises. When there is a word in a verse that hasn’t been learned, the English gloss (a short basic definition) is listed in parenthesis next to the Greek word. This is much nicer than at least one other book where the extra vocabulary is listed on another page, sometimes requiring a page turn so that one is constantly flipping back and forth. There is an answer key for the exercises in the Appendix at the end of the book.

For more extensive exercises there is a companion workbook, sold separately. There is no answer key in the workbook, but if you write to the publisher, they will send you one in PDF format. The workbook (which was a pleasant surprise since I didn’t expect it to be sent to me) has all sorts of exercises coming at the Greek from many angles.

Verbs are introduced in chapter 2 and all of the indicative verbs are covered by chapter 17. There are various methods for introducing verbs in the books I’ve seen. I like having them introduced early so that they can be reviewed frequently as time goes on. There are very helpful charts of the indicative verb forms in the middle of the book. I wish I would have known this earlier so that I could have referred to it as I went along but it wasn’t mentioned earlier in the book. There is also a very helpful large fold-out complete Greek Verb Chart glued to the inside of the back cover.

There are a couple of very important items that were put in footnotes which I think should be in the main part of the text. (There are very few, thankfully, and they are at the end of each section where they are easy to see.) In particular is footnote iii. on page 31 which mentions that kai can mean “both”, “also” or “even”. So be sure to pay close attention to the footnotes.

I believe this book is a very efficient way to learn beginning level Greek. I would think it would be especially useful for someone reviewing Greek that they’ve already learned. I like to use more than one book to be able to read things explained in different ways, but this book is my first choice for the primary book to study and I highly recommend it.

Buy it from Amazon.com

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: B&H Academic; Third edition (March 1, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0805444939

The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation by Craig Keener

I liked this commentary so much I thought I’d write a mini-review with some information about Craig Keener and type out some of the quotes I liked.

Craig Keener is someone who has an extraordinary passion for the Bible and a very high view of Scripture and God’s sovereignty. He’s an excellent exegete influenced by Gordon Fee and nearly as objective in his interpretation.

He’s also lived in dangerous urban environments where his life has been threatened and he knows what it is to be persecuted, as much as can be in the U.S. and he writes briefly about some of these experiences as they relate to the book of Revelation.

If you’d like to learn more about him you can read Fridays with Craig Keener at Word and Spirit, a series of eight interviews (in reverse order here).

Here is a brief video where Craig S. Keener tells the story behind the NIVAC Revelation commentary. He writes about this in the preface of the commentary.

My exposure to Revelation has been reading through it a few times, participating in a group Bible study on it which I have almost no recollection of and reading about bits of it here and there in various books. I wanted a commentary that was substantial, but not a large technical tome such as Aune or Beale. The only other NIVAC commentary I have is the one on Luke and I was a little disappointed in it as a commentary. It’s a great book on the life and teachings of Jesus, but many questions weren’t addressed. So I was reluctant to try another one but this didn’t disappoint at all. It seemed to be tailor made for someone like me.

In the commentary portion Keener addresses nearly all of the text of Revelation succinctly but fully. I never felt that there was a portion that was glossed over without addressing it.

In the Bridging Contexts sections he often writes about common gross misinterpretations, interpretations throughout history and how the passage relates to other parts of Scripture among other things which is extremely helpful.

Some may think it difficult to write about how the whole book of Revelation is relevant to us today but Keener does this with ease in the Contemporary Significance sections.

Here are some of my favorite quotes.

The necessity of remaining faithful until the end (Revelation 2:26) fits historic Calvinist and Arminian belief: The former argue that those who fall away were never converted, whereas the latter argue that they have lost their salvation–but both concur that they will not be saved. Verses such and this one and countless others, however, may prove uncomfortable to those who think that merely praying a prayer without truly persevering in Christian faith is adequate for salvation.

One [also] wonders how Luther, Calvin, Wesley, or others would feel about some who in their name privilege theological traditions above firsthand study of Scripture itself.

…not a single text supports addressing the devil as if he were omnipresent, during prayer. [On spiritual warfare, rebuking the devil etc. Revelation 12:7-9]

More quotes to come in future posts.

Buy it from:

• Amazon.com

In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel Centered Life by Dr. Sinclair Ferguson

This is a Reformation Trust review.

Sinclair Ferguson draws heavily on the Gospel of John and the book of Hebrews to paint a portrait of Christ and His sufficiency for living out our faith.

The book is accessible for the lay person but meaty enough for anyone although it may not be for those who are new Christians.

The book is comprised of 50 somewhat short chapters making it suitable for devotional reading. The chapters are divided into six sections, each pertaining to a different aspect of Christology.

The book is one quotable quote after another. The chapter entitled Santa Christ? has been quoted in part on blogs from time to time.

Ferguson’s theology is fully and obviously Reformed but the nature of the book is not polemic, apologetic or comparative. He even gives a few warnings to those who are Reformed.

The apostles saw that Pentecost was a once-for-all-time, epoch-making event, but with often-repeatable elements built into it. The empowering for witness that Jesus promised was to be limited neither to the single event of Pentecost nor exclusively to the apostles. It extended beyond their persons and time (Acts. 2:4).

A Word to the Reformed

This is what we still need: power to witness. The truth is that nothing would as readily silence gainsayers against the Reformed faith as would this. Far more important, it is only through such empowering that we will get beyond witnessing to fellow Christians about the Reformed faith and start witnessing to non-Christians about saving faith.

His zeal for Scripture is evident:

[A]biding in Christ means allowing His Word to fill our
minds, direct our wills, and transform our affections. In other words, our relationship to Christ is intimately connected to what we do with our Bibles!

For those who have a hard time with the book of Hebrews (although I’m not sure why there are so many), Ferguson explains how “there is no letter in the New Testament that tells us more about Christ and His work” in the chapter entitled: Hebrews—Does It Do Anything for You?

Some of the later chapters seem a bit disjointed. Maybe this is because the book began as articles in Table Talk and Eternity Magazine. However this is only a stylistic point and doesn’t detract from the quality of the content.

Other than that very minor point I have nothing negative to say about this book. While reading it I found myself worshiping our Savior, learning more about Jesus, having some questions answered and looking foreword the the next chapter. It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time and is my favorite so far of the books I’ve read from Reformation Trust. I highly recommend it.

Table of Contents and Sample Chapter (PDF File)

Book details:

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Reformation Trust Publishing
• Publication Date: December 15, 2007
• ISBN-10: 1567690890

Buy it from:

• Ligonier Ministries Store
• Amazon

• Part 1
• Part 2

Miscellaneous Helpful Features in BibleWorks

The Command Line alone is a wondrous thing. So many different types of searches can be performed that I can’t think of much of anything that couldn’t be done. There is an extensive Help file page devoted to the Command Line. In English, any number of searches can be performed and for geeks, regular expressions can be used.

An example of a more complex search would be:
(/grac* faith*).5(/law* work*)

would give you:
a form of “grac…” OR “faith…” AND a form of “law…” OR “work…” within 5 verses

There is also a more user friendly Command Line Assistant and plenty of examples. For even more complex searches that the Command Line can’t do there is the Graphical Search Engine.

A number of Greek syntax searches can be done. You could search for all verbs within a range of verses, narrow that down to first person singular and/or plural, or any number of other syntactical searches.

“Which Version Uses that Word?
Do you or have you used more than one translation in your life? Do you sometimes try to find a word or phrase that you are certain is in the Bible, but cannot remember which translation has it? BibleWorks can help you find a word or phrase even if you cannot remember which translation contains it.”

Vocabulary Flashcards
You can find vocabulary sets for Hebrew and Greek including Greek sets from Croy (a book I’m going through), Mounce, Black and others. These include sound files with a choice of Erasmian Greek or thankfully, modern pronunciation! I don’t use Erasmian and if I want to hear something pronounced I would rather hear something closer to what I use.

The Synopsis Window helps you to find predefined parallel Gospel passages, places where the New Testament quotes the Old Testament and parallel passages in the Old Testament. Another feature that helps you find similar information but wider in scope is the Related Verses Tool. When choosing a Greek morphology version, it will automatically remove words of lesser importance like contractions, articles, etc. In the example below you can see that I clicked on the verse in Isaiah in the middle window and it shows up in the right window.

Click for a larger image.

Search and Display Favorites
You can create favorite lists of translations to display when doing a search. I have a main favorite (which I named f1), one for the Old Testament (which will display a Hebrew Bible that can be linked to a lexicon), one that displays mainly formal (more literal) translations, one that displays mainly dynamic and paraphrases etc.

Click for a larger image.

What I would like to see in BibleWorks

• A popular paraphrase translation like The Message or the Good News Bible (for occasional comparison)
• I was a little disappointed in the section on A Brief Description of Major English Translations. Only a few of the translations were given descriptions and outdated terms like word-for-word are used for some translations. I know it’s “brief” but it would be nice to see that updated and expanded. I was hoping to find more information on each translation included in the program all in one place. Maybe this is asking a bit much.
• Some functions require going down a couple menu items in order to perform it. For example, to uncheck all boxes of verses that appear in the Search Window results, you must right click and go down two menus in order to uncheck all the boxes. I would think there could be a button or keyboard shortcut for something like this, although there are a lot of keyboard shortcuts for many functions within the program. I would also like to see custom toolbars where a new toolbar can be created with buttons for functions that are frequently used. This would be a major task for the software developers since there are so many functions in the program. But I have seen this done with high end graphics programs and it greatly speeds up the process.
• Commentaries by Gill, Clarke and a few others that can be found for e-Sword

Regarding commentaries: An advantage of using BibleWorks is that when displaying a verse in the Browse window, you will find all of the resources available pertaining to that verse in the Resources window. When looking at a commentary, it will not only give you a link to the commentary for that verse, but also links for every other instance that verse is mentioned in the whole commentary.

Click for a larger image.

Ease of Use

The learning curve is as shallow or as steep as you’d like to make it. The box that the CDs come in has a 16 page Quick-Start Guide for guiding you through installation and basic functions. That, along with right clicking and pressing F1 everywhere in the program, and going through all of the menu items at the top of the program will show you most of what the program has to offer.

Going from the Command Line/Results window on the left, to the Browse window in the middle and to the Analysis window at the right is intuitive and easy to navigate.

If you’d like to go deeper into exegesis, sermon preparation, etc. the aforementioned Performing Common Tasks in BibleWorks will guide you through only what you need to know.

If you are like me and like to read owner’s manuals you will be greatly rewarded by going through the whole help file system. You won’t remember everything you read because of the program’s vast capabilities, but you will know what every function of the program does and you can go back and relearn whatever is necessary when the time comes.

There is also their official BibleWorks User Forums where I’ve gotten quick replies to a couple of questions I had that don’t fall under the area of technical support.

I hope that gives you a glimpse of just some of the things that this software can do and help you with making a decision in which Bible software to purchase.

• Part 1
• Part 2

Installation

I had a problem installing the software on my desktop computer. I quickly found this helpful post on their forum:
What Do I Do if the Installation Stalls at Disc x?
My CD drive died a while ago and I replaced it with an ancient one that a friend gave me. This most likely caused the problem. After following the instructions I got it installed. Installing it on the laptop was no problem. Be sure to choose custom installation and choose the languages you want to install and whether or not you want sound, videos and maps depending on the size of your hard drive. I strongly recommend the instructional videos.

I also had a glitch in applying a program update. I was unable to fix this on my own so I wrote to their e-mail tech support and got the problem resolved. They also offer toll free phone support and they have a forum of BibleWorks users for various other questions you may have.

Learning BibleWorks

The software comes with copious help files which are in sort of a two tiered system. First there is the Getting Started section which includes Performing Common Tasks in BibleWorks. The tasks listed are Major Tasks, Analyzing Bible Text, Displaying Bible Text and Reference Works, and Miscellaneous Tasks.

Under Major Tasks you will find “Getting Started” (redundant?), Preparing a Book Study, Preparing a Topical Study, Preparing an Exegetical Paper, Using BibleWorks in the Classroom, Using BibleWorks for Bible Translation Projects, Using BibleWorks and Only English Bibles, and Performing New Testament Textual Criticism.

As an example, Prepare an Exegetical Paper guides you through the steps required, not just BibleWorks features but a description of how to actually do exegesis, and even provides a bibliography of printed works on the subjects involved. Although there is a separate category for textual criticism in the Help file system, it’s also included in this section and is something I was previously unable to do on my own. If the videos are installed, you can find links (within the program) to videos of some of the tasks described which will show you basic procedures along with the text description.

Then there is a main Help section which has the usual index, search etc. The index is organized in such a way that you can progressively go through each item in order to learn how to use every function in the program.

The BibleWorks Blog (unofficial) is a helpful resource not only for the blog but for the additional resources listed across the top of the page. For example, you can find Calvin’s commentaries on the Modules page and a great tutorial on using Louw-Nida on the Tutorials page.

• Part 1
• Part 3

A huge thanks goes to Jim Barr at BibleWorks for sending a review copy of BibleWorks 8.

As a preface to this review: I do not have any other commercial Bible software or a previous version of BibleWorks so I won’t be able to make any comparisons. I am an avid e-Sword user and was going to write about why it might be worth it to upgrade to BibleWorks. When I found out that BibleWorks has more features than I could ever imagine, I scrapped that idea. e-Sword is a great program, and not just for the price (free, with additional paid add-ons) but it’s not comparable to BibleWorks.

I will say that for pastors, students and Bible translators, this software in my estimation will save a lot of time. It will make sermon preparation and writing papers go much faster, leaving more time for other duties or studying. For lay people, it depends on your budget and how far you like to go with Bible study. I can’t imagine anyone with the budget for it being disappointed.

Just buying all the translations, books and other reference materials alone would cost far more than the software. To have them not only within the program but all linked to the passage, verse or word you’re studying at lightning fast speed makes it all the more valuable. There are quite a few Hebrew and Greek grammar books like Wallace’s Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics included in the program. I assumed that these were just for reading but I was pleasantly surprised to see that the contents of the books are linked to original language words–so you can learn more about the syntax of a word you’re studying–as is nearly everything else within BibleWorks.

Although one of the strengths of BibleWorks is in working with the original languages, it has so many features for working with English only translations and text that it would be worth the price of the program for this alone. Even if you do work with the original languages, I would suggest starting out with Using BibleWorks and Only English Bibles in the Help file system under Getting Started – Major Tasks.

In this review I would like to write about installing and learning to use the program, highlight a few features that are of interest to me and show you some screenshots in Part 3. See the Full Contents (and capabilities) and their brochure (PDF file) for a feature list.

• Part 2
• Part 3

Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism by Joel R. Beeke with contributions from: Sinclair B. Ferguson, James Grier, Michael A. G. Haykin, Nelson Kloosterman, Ray Lanning, Robert Oliver, Ray Pennings, Derek W. H. Thomas

Joel Beeke says, “The target audience for this book is laypeople and ministers who are interested in learning the basics of Calvinism. I hope it also will serve as a stimulating summary and refresher course for those who are already avid Calvinists, much as Steven J. Lawson’s The Expository Genius of John Calvin from Reformation Trust excites those of us who are already familiar with much of its content. I have worked hard to keep this book simple, clear, and non-technical, in the hope that you might hand it to others to help them understand how you think as a Calvinist.”

I felt this was the case except the chapter on philosophy can be a more difficult read for those of us not well versed on the subject.

While John Calvin – A Heart for Devotion Doctrine & Doxology, also from Reformation Trust and reviewed here, is about John Calvin himself and a brief introduction to his theology, this book is less about Calvin himself and more about Calvinism from the beginnings of the Reformation through the time of the Puritans both in Europe and after they arrived in the U.S. It’s longer and more thorough than the previous mentioned book but is still introductory.

Included in this history are the Reformed canons, confessions and catechisms. There is a lengthy treatment of these documents which may be of interest to some who are unfamiliar with their content and origins.

Other notable figures from Martin Luther (including an explanation of the differences between Lutheranism and Calvinism) to Jonathan Edwards are mentioned in the book.

Although the acronym TULIP wasn’t developed until the 1900’s, the Canons of Dort contain a response to the Remonstrance of 1610, a response to Calvinism by forty-three of Arminius’ followers. “The canons were structured to correspond with the five articles of the 1610 Remonstrance” which correspond to the contents of TULIP but in a different order. This is covered quite a bit in the book. Therefore, this book isn’t an objective look at Calvinism as compared to other areas of theology and Arminianism is talked about negatively and even called “heretical” (or at least referring to what Arminius’ followers had to say) which is going too far. Just when I thought there may have been too much time spent refuting Arminian theology, the book moved on from there.

The book doesn’t dwell too much on TULIP though, as Calvinism is much more than that:

“It is important to note that the five points do not summarize all of Calvinism; that would be a truncated view of the Reformed faith. One of the aims of this book is to show the panoramic grandeur of the Reformed faith’s worldview.”

The book also covers the popular 5 Solas–Scripture alone (sola Scriptura), grace alone (sola gratia), faith alone (sola fide), Christ alone (solus Christus), and the glory of God alone (soli Deo gloria).

A couple of ancillary benefits to this book are the extensive citations and bibliographies at the end of each chapter and an introduction to the history and theology of the Puritans who carried on the Reformed tradition.

Other than listing some of the current denominations that are Reformed, I would like to have seen the history go even farther–past the Puritan era–but that may have been beyond the size and scope of the book.

This book is very readable, enjoyable and educational. I highly recommend it.

Hardcover: 414 pages
Publisher: Reformation Trust Publishing
Publication Date: September 12, 2008
ISBN-10: 1567691056
ISBN-13: 978-1567691054

Buy it from:

• Reformation Trust
• Amazon.com

Great Prayers of the Old Testament by Walter Brueggemann

Presbyterian Publishing graciously sent me a review copy of this book.

Walter Brueggemann exposits twelve prayers of the Old Testament including those of Abraham, Moses, Hannah, David, Solomon, Jonah, Jeremiah, Hezekiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel and Job.

The substantive Introduction includes discussion on the origins of prayer including the first recorded prayer of the Israelites in Egypt.

Brueggemann often contrasts the primitive prayer of antiquity to those in the modern church, albeit a bit cynically:

It is evident in contemporary church practice, given rational assumptions and psychological sophistication, that much prayer in the church is reduced to an emotional exercise. This is evident in our propensity to ‘feel better’ when we pray, and in the readiness to water down petitions so as not to ask in bold ways, when our modernity assumes that in fact there is no one listening anyway.

Each chapter includes background information pertaining to history, culture, politics and context surrounding each prayer. The prayers are exposited as opposed to being devotional or pastoral in nature. Grammar and a bit of Hebrew are delved into, but not in a way that is cumbersome or not easily understandable to a wide audience. Although there is brief mention of application, this is left mainly for the reader to ponder through three Questions for Reflection and Discussion at the end of each chapter.

It’s obvious that the author has a firm grasp of the Old Testament, often providing references to other passages that are relevant to the discussion. Ties to the New Testament are also occasionally mentioned.

If I may use the terms liberal and conservative, Brueggemann is on the liberal side from my conservative perspective.

Some things that make you go hmmm…

• The author says that, “Abraham and YHWH share confidences and are perhaps ‘best friends,’” although to be fair he mentions that Isaiah 41:8 has it, “Abraham, my friend.” Also regarding Abraham he says that “Abraham finds a ‘prayer partner’” who is competent and ready to be engaged.”
• Regarding Moses, “It is evident in this exchange that Moses loves Israel more passionately than does YHWH, and it is this greater passion that sets the tone of urgency in the prayer.”
• In the chapter on the prayer of Hezekiah which mentions the oppression of the Assyrian empire: “Those of us who belong to the United States as an imperial power may take note that the transformative prayer is on the lips of those who are under threat from empire.” I’m speechless on this one. Make of it what you may.

A brief Retrospect ties everything together very well.

The book is well organized and thought out, and is very efficient with words, leaving this reader feeling that it’s just the right length.

The author speaks with one bit of humor (pages 11-12 which I won’t spoil for you) and passion.

I assumed that anything coming from the book’s publisher, Westminster John Knox Press, would be in a similar vein to my conservative/reformed proclivities but apparently that isn’t always the case, thus I was a bit taken aback by some of the things I read. However, my preferences should in no way detract from the quality of the book for those who may be interested. I came away with not only a better understanding of the twelve prayers, but a better understanding of parts of the Old Testament.

Paperback: 142 pages
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press (October 1, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0664231748

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